Many of today's vehicles are equipped with roof racks for stowing cargo. Such roof racks typically include feet or towers that are mounted to the roof of the vehicle and that support a plurality of transversely extending load beams. The load beams typically support cargo above the roof of the vehicle and provide structures for tying down and securing the cargo.
Although providing a basic structure for supporting cargo upon the roof of the vehicle, such roof racks are not well suited for supporting elongate, irregularly shaped cargo, such as various watercrafts, surfboards, ski equipment and the like. In particular, securely mounting such elongate cargo to and upon the transverse load beams is difficult. Moreover, the elongate cargo is susceptible to shifting and possible damage.
Another problem associated with merely using a conventional roof rack or the aforementioned mounting arrangements to support the elongated cargo is the extremely difficult task of loading or unloading elongated cargo onto or off of the roof rack or mounting arrangement. Because such elongated cargo is frequently heavy or extremely awkward to handle, maneuvering and positioning such elongated cargo onto the roof rack or onto the roof-mounting arrangement on top of the roof rack is tedious, time consuming and strenuous. In an attempt to provide easier loading and unloading of elongated cargo onto and off of a vehicle roof rack, a multitude of loading arrangements have been developed. However, known loading arrangements are extremely complex, difficult to manipulate and difficult to mount to an existing roof rack.